by S L Dearing
Shannon handed him the keys and looked at him. He gave her a quick smile and then grabbed her face, kissing her deeply. He turned his attention back to the car and closed his eyes.
“Please start…”
He placed the key in the ignition and turned. The car sputtered, and then roared to life. He pulled out slowly and drove around the wreckage and debris of the city. Then he gave it gas and headed toward the mountains. The roads were fairly clear and soon they were out of the city and racing to the forest. Shannon watched the dark and sparse destruction they had once called home slowly disappear as the green of the forest loomed before them.
They had been travelling for about an hour when they pulled over to assess Max’s injuries. He was able to move now and he could breathe and eat. They assumed he must have cracked ribs. He winced when they touched his side. Shannon taped him up as best she could and gave him some water.
The sun hung low in the sky as they hurried deeper into the forest. The orange and pinks of the impending sunset danced against the clouds. As they drove, Josh finally looked over at Shannon.
“I never would have given you to them…I hope you know that.”
She smiled.
“If I’d thought you would have, I would have killed you then and there.”
He smiled back.
“So…you still want to be with me?” he asked.
She sighed and then smiled. She had spent most of her life looking for someone she could connect with and now at the end of the world, she found him. A man she had known for less than forty-eight hours. A man she knew relatively nothing about, but he wanted to be with her.
“Yes, yes, I do…you know...you don’t even know how old I am, Josh.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to me… but it might to you.”
“Naw… I’ve always been into older women…guess you’re just not used to being a cougar.”
Shannon laughed. She had always loved laughing, but now…now she really felt it. The warm rumble as it moved through your body, coating everything in joy.
“No, I guess not.”
“Seriously though, do you even know how hot you are?”
Shannon smiled and shook her head.
“Oh, yeah…” he said. “What you did back in the hallway…totally Bad Ass. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Thanks…I didn’t either.”
“But I have a question…”
“Yeah?”
“Why brackets?”
Shannon began laughing again and then explained her dream about the zombies.
“Who knew they would work so great against douche bags?” she said.
Josh laughed and nodded. Shannon smiled as she listened to him talk about his life before. She reached into the backseat, rubbing Max’s head, and then she opened her pack and pulled out the photos she had placed in there. Then she reached deeper and pulled out her three photos. She looked at all of them and then she placed them on the dash and lightly touched his hand. He stopped talking and glanced at them. Then he looked at her and smiled. He turned back to concentrate on driving and she looked out the passenger window. He slowly lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
“I love you,” he said.
She smiled and watched the sun drop low in the sky as the trees whipped by and she wondered…exactly how do you plant a garden?
WELCOME TO THE END OF THE WORLD
(POPULATION: UNKNOWN)
R.M. GILMORE
Dedicated to:
My husband and daughter.
Neither of which could I ever live without.
Author Info:
R.M. Gilmore, author of the Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult series and the Lynnie Russell Trilogy, resides in Central California with her husband, children and too many pets. You can find her work on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads.com, and Shelfari.com.
Connect with R.M. Gilmore:
http://www.RMGilmoreAuthor.com
http://facebook.com/RMGilmoreAuthor
https://twitter.com/RMGilmoreAuthor
Welcome to the End of the World
It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, it might’ve been. I actually had no idea. I’d been shut away in my basement for damn near a week. At least, I think so. Can’t really tell day or night when you’re stuck underground. Something in your body has a general idea about the passing of time, but there is no sure way to measure time when there is no power and no sun.
A little over a week ago the earth decided to shift at its core. That’s what the last news flash that came through on TV had said anyway. This triggered massive earthquakes that demolished buildings, tore open the ground at our feet, and caused the cataclysmic eruption of a multitude of volatile volcanoes all over the world. What the molten lava didn’t destroy the earthquakes had. It took just over twenty-four hours to turn our beautiful earth to smoldering rubble. What humans and animals had survived were left strangled by black ash that floated through every inch of air and snuffed out the sun.
By some Godly miracle my husband and I survived. The earthquakes hadn’t touched our area with enough intensity to demolish our home completely and we are lucky enough to live at elevations high enough to protect us from the flowing lava. There were floods in other areas of the world from what I’d heard on a quick blurb of newscast over our tiny radio in the kitchen before the power cut out completely but, thankfully, that was nowhere near here.
When the sun hadn’t come back after a few days he and I made the rash decision to hole up in the basement and wait it out. Our neighbors, what were left of them, were showing signs of hysteria and began fighting amongst themselves. Food was scarce and water was almost nonexistent. Some people were smart enough to fill their bathtubs or stockpile bottled water for such an event, but those people were few and far between.
My husband and I were grabbing what we could while we watched out our kitchen window. Someone we didn’t recognize was wandering the neighborhood. He was tall and lean and carrying a large scythe as a weapon.
He’d ransacked the Morrison’s house three doors down and was working his way toward us as we packed a grocery bag as quickly as we could. The man caught my stare and decided to forgo the others and move directly on to us. Maybe he was looking for a fight. Maybe he had more things in mind than stealing food and water. I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I caught a smile spread across the strangers face just seconds before my husband pulled me by the arm to the basement door.
We hadn’t had much time to pack anything substantial. I managed to grab a handful of bottles of water and a book of matches off the kitchen counter. My husband had filled a plastic grocery bag with a few cans of beans and a box of cereal; a few scattered granola bars and a half a bag of chips lay pathetic at the bottom of the bag. This was all we had to our name. Our master plan, hide out and wait, was off to a dangerous start.
A few minutes after we’d locked ourselves in our miniscule basement we heard the distinct sound of heavy boots clopping along the hardwood floor. The man was in the house. My husband pulled his shoes off and slowly pulled his sock clad feet up the wooden stairs. Thanks to the Cold War, the basement door was made of a thick sheet of metal and boasts three large deadbolts, each one locked tight the moment the door closed behind us. It was unlikely the man could get to us, but the thought of us being trapped in the basement as long as he was up there was beginning to sink in.
Maybe he’d take what he needed and leave. Maybe he’d use our home as a crash pad and move on. At that moment all I wanted was a light. The basement was pitch dark. Tiny strips of light peered through the floorboards in our old, rundown, utility room that had been added on sometime in the eighties, but all it provided was something to look at while I listened for our intruder. I shuffled my feet in the sandy dirt floor of the basement and received a prompt shush from my husband at the top of the stairs. He was listening at the heavy metal door. I doubted he could hear anything through that t
hick sheet of steel and laughed inside at the idiocy of it.
Cabinet doors banged against each other and the distinct sound of silverware clanking together filled the dark basement. The stranger was searching the house. A few more bangs and scrapes echoed through the hardwood floor before the silence began.
I stood as still as I possibly could. I don’t even think I took a breath in that span of minutes. I didn’t hear any movement from the top of the stairs where my husband stood either. Standing in the dark in complete silence causes a brain to search the empty space for stimuli. But there was nothing. Not a sound for what could have been fifteen minutes. I heard the release of a sigh from my husband and I followed suit.
“I hear you.” A gruff voice scratched its way through the cracks in the utility room floor.
I let out a squeal and nearly jumped out of my panties. I looked directly above me to find the slivers of light through the floorboards blocked by darkness. A huff of a breath came through the crack and spewed dirt down onto my face. The man had his face pressed against the floor above us, peeking through the cracks. I clamped my hands over my mouth and let out a heavy set of breaths. A rustling to my left and my husband was by my side in an instant.
The earth had cracked open and spewed fiery death upon everything it touched and this was the way I was going to die? A tiny piece of me accepted my fate. A piece that knew I’d been too lucky. The piece that mourned my only child, who’d been lost along with a handful of others who hadn’t escaped the collapse of the school house, in the first set of quakes. That tiny piece wished to die. Prayed I’d see my beautiful girl again. Was ready to leave this horrific world that was left behind. My husband laced his fingers through my open hand and I remembered why I continued to survive. To fight for my life.
I knew my girl was gone, she was safe in the arms of the Lord and she’d never have to live in this new world, but my husband was still here and as long as he was here I would be by his side. Moreover, he’d be by mine, keeping me grounded to the earth, holding me up when all I wanted to do is fall. Until the true end, we were together.
“Come on up, my darling. Let me see you.” A small chuckle followed his eerie words.
I’d been right. He was searching for far more than sustenance. I refused to answer. I refused to breathe.
“Open up the door and I’ll share.” A nasally snicker puffed more dirt through the cracks above me.
“You stay right where you are asshole, you’ll be waiting a while. Might as well move on. Take what you need and go,” I yelled upward as loudly and forcefully as I could muster. The ash that floated in the air outside had penetrated the confines of our home within hours of the first eruptions. It was thick and clogged the lungs, causing a rattling, heavy cough. I fought the cough with all I could.
“I’ll be waiting when you’re ready.” Another aggravating chuckle and the darkness in the cracks was gone. The light slivers shown just as brightly as before; as brightly as the ashen sky outside would allow.
That was just over four days ago, I think. The stranger moved about our house as though he’d lived there for years. All the while I tried to pretend he wasn’t there. I focused on memories of my family, of my girl and my handsome husband, and tried so hard not to think about what could have been. I talked as quietly as I could to my only company in the dark, but it seemed as though my darling husband was drifting farther away with each passing day.
Thankfully, my husband had directed me through the darkness, with surprising ease, to find his fishing knife in his tackle box in the basement. We were lucky I’d asked him to store his fishing stuff in the basement because it smelled horribly. If not, we’d have been left with five cans of food and nothing to open them with. Every few hours we’d light a match and allow our eyes to adjust or open a can of food, but other than those minor moments we lived in complete darkness.
The two of us talked very little over that long span of waiting. We were well aware the man was still right above us; we recognized that the world as we knew it was crumbling around us, and we couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I felt my will to live failing. My eyes hardly stayed open anymore. What was the point? I couldn’t see shit anyway.
I spent the majority of my time listening intently to the creaks in the floor above me. The stranger peered down every day, or so I’m assuming, and spoke to me. He never acknowledged my husband; he only ever spoke directly to me. He beckoned me sweetly; never forceful, never pleading, patient as he could be he requested my presence methodically. And methodically, I refused.
After this many days in the darkened basement, sitting on the dirt floor, eating as little as possible, I was surprised my husband and I hadn’t argued once. In our entire relationship this was a first. I suppose it took the end of the world to resolve our issues.
I was rustling in the bag of food when the stranger came to speak to me through the cracks in the floor.
“Are you ready to come see me? I’ve been waiting so long for you. Days and days.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, “I need you to open that door, sweetness.”
“In your dreams, douchebag. What you need is to move the hell on,” I hollered up through the floorboards.
“I can come down to you.” I’d heard his snicker like a skipping record for so many days, this time was different. This snicker sounded confident. Confident that somehow he could get to me.
“Go to hell!” I yelled, followed by my rattling cough.
“This is hell.” No chuckle, no snicker, no huff of dust down on my face. These words were true. Our world had been reduced to fire and brimstone in a matter of a day. It was hell on earth.
I didn’t respond. The stranger’s comment sent chills down my aching spine. I reached out into the darkness for my husband, my salvation, my only saving grace from this hell. My outstretched hand only passed through damp air. He should’ve been just to my left, as he always was, but I found nothing. The floor above me was silent. I relaxed just a little, as I had so many times before, knowing he wasn’t looking down on me through the cracks.
Without an ounce of warning the tip of a scythe popped through the rotting wood above me. I screamed. I screamed in short, cough interrupted, screams. The tip of the scythe retracted and left a large fissure in the wood planks. Light shown through and burned my eyes. I closed them as quickly as I could and backpedaled to the wall at my back. After a few seconds I opened my eyes and searched the room for my husband. My stomach sank at the thought of seeing his face after so long in the dark.
My eyes darted around the room trying to take everything in. After so long in the black room my eyes didn’t want to cooperate. I wasn’t seeing him. I found the empty workbench to the back wall, the pile of fishing equipment next to it, our discarded food cans, but no husband. The basement is the size of a bedroom, no hallways, no crevasses to hide in, just one large room. Where could he have gone in the dark?
My breaths came out in short, ragged heaves. I was starting to cry. The scythe came through the floor above me again, this time with greater force. Chunks of wood splintered down on me. I crawled on hands and knees around the room, waving my hand in front of me, searching the dim space for the solid feel of my husband. Overly salty tears flooded down my cheeks and into my open mouth. My movement across the dirt floor kicked up flurries of dust that stuck to my wet face.
The scythe pierced the wood again and flooded the room with light. I could see more clearly now. Every corner was illuminated with gray light from the hole the scythe wielding stranger had created. I saw nothing. No safety net. No husband hiding away in the dark. Only my pile of empty cans. My discarded plastic bottles. A sob escaped my ash heavy lungs and vomit followed. Reality had found its way into my consciousness. Every moment of the previous week flooded through my brain and I knew all I truly had was myself. I was alone. Wholly and utterly alone. No daughter, no husband, no hope.
In a dramatic effort to save our child my husband had raced to the school in the middle of the first qu
akes. He promised to keep her safe. He made me swear to stay in the house. Made me promise to hide in the basement if I needed to. To save myself and the child I held inside me. I was alone for days before the stranger made his way up the street. I prayed he’d found her, prayed he’d come through the door carrying my beautiful girl in his arms, prayed he’d save me from the stranger in the street. Days past, alone in this basement, listening to the beckoning of the strange man above me. He never came.
Everything that had kept me alive, forced me to survive, begged me to fight, was gone. Out there somewhere in the middle of the apocalypse was my family. And here I was, stuck in a basement with a raving maniac breaking his way into my sanctuary with his fierce blade.
Splintered wood showered my hair and shoulders. My head hung until my hair drug in the dirt. On all fours in the dirt I fought the urge to lie down, to give up, to give in to the maniac and let him have me. Another swing of his blade and a plank of wood came crashing to the ground near my feet. A deep, ragged breath broke my sobs and I held it. I held my breath until I thought I’d faint. A light fluttering in the center of my stomach forced me to inhale. I pulled in my lifesaving breath and laid a hand on my belly. Of all the times he chose to allow me to feel his movement, his life, he chose this one.
My head lifted quickly from the dirt and my eyes focused on my would-be attacker. For the first time in days I saw his face. His clothes were sprayed with rusty blood and his face smeared with ash. A white smile shown bright and cut the dreary gray of his ashy face. He disgusted me. The fishing knife that I’d used to open my cans sat alone in the center of the floor near my pile of cans. The stranger laughed and swung his blade one last time. I scurried on all fours toward my only weapon. My filthy hand swept across the dirt floor and scooped up my weapon. The knife was long, curved, and sharp as hell.
I flipped to my backside in time to watch the skeleton skinny man drop from the hole he’d created to the dirt floor a few feet away from me. He held his scythe at his side, as though he was death coming for me, assuming I was defenseless; weak. I let him think that while he shuffled his feet toward me. He smiled as he had the first day I’d seen him on the street outside my house. He knew I was alone. He knew I was vulnerable. Maybe I was, the first time I’d seen him. I’d been so lost and scared. Not anymore. My husband was gone, my daughter was gone, but my hope was alive and kicking inside me. It was all I needed.